Mercy Corps to Launch On-Line Service for Entrepreneurs

Mercy Corps has helped entrepreneurs like Najeeba Haidari with sound business training and fair loans to build their businesses and achieve their goals. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps has acquired MicroMentor, an innovative on-line service for entrepreneurs, from the Aspen Institute, which created the program and launched it in the United States.

Launched in 2001, MicroMentor harnesses the power of the Internet to link budding entrepreneurs to experienced businesspeople interested in mentoring. These fledgling entrepreneurs can request up to three mentors for assistance with a wide range of subjects - including marketing, product development, business planning and expansion, financial management and technology.

Launched after a decade of research by the Aspen Institute's Fund for Innovation Effectiveness, Learning and Dissemination (FIELD), MicroMentor operated initially as a pilot project in California but soon captured such interest that it expanded nationally within two years.

Mercy Corps, which delivered over $200 million in assistance in 2005 to over 40 countries, is well-known for creating sustainable, market-driven business development solutions for people living in some of the world's most challenging economic environments. Mercy Corps supports microenterprise development in both the United States and overseas.

The agency will continue MicroMentor's domestic expansion while testing and refining the program in a variety of contexts overseas. In doing so, Mercy Corps can offer many of its individual donors and corporate partners an option for complementing their financial giving by sharing their time and expertise with hardworking business owners everywhere.

The MicroMentor program will be directed by Karen Doyle Grossman, formerly of the Aspen Institute and architect of the original MicroMentor concept.

"We are thrilled with the opportunity to take this important and dynamic program to microentrepreneurs around the globe, and are so appreciative of the trust that our colleagues at the Aspen Institute have placed in Mercy Corps," Grossman said. "I had always hoped that MicroMentor eventually would be an international program, connecting people in the same business industry to exchange the critical ideas, contacts, and encouragement that enable businesses to grow and thrive. Given people's thirst and aptitude for online social networking and their desire to connect with peers in other parts of the world, this is the perfect time to realize MicroMentor's potential."

"Millions of the world's self-employed are struggling to grow businesses in isolation, unable to compete globally, because of an acute lack connection to and information about markets," said Nancy Lindborg, Mercy Corps President. "We want MicroMentor to be a small piece of the economic development puzzle that levels the playing field for developing world entrepreneurs."

MicroMentor will strengthen Mercy Corps' robust economic development strategy around the world. Some of Mercy Corps' current economic development programs include:

• The Gobi Regional Economic Growth Initiative in Mongolia, a program that focuses on developing cooperatives, expanding and diversifying small businesses, and improving the quality and accessibility of local business development and support services for traditional herding families.
• A microcredit program in Tajikistan called Imon, which provides group and individual micro loans (as small as US $30), business advice and technical assistance - with little or no collateral to begin - to mostly female entrepreneurs.
• Helping shopkeepers and hoteliers in tsunami-stricken coastal Sri Lanka to rebuild critical tourist infrastructure through a livelihoods recovery program and strengthening local business associations.

The transfer of MicroMentor to Mercy Corps is effective October 1, 2006.